Our Activities

ICLEI supports the sub-national governments’ initiative on achieving Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Aichi Prefecture called for a group of leading sub-national governments showing significant efforts for achieving the Aichi Targets. The initiative was established during CBD-COP13 in Cancun, Mexico in 2016 and joined by a significant number of sub-national governments. ICLEI supported its launch and is contributing to develop their joint activities toward COP14 and beyond.

Through GrowSmarter ICLEI worked to develop a comprehensive understanding and guide for the replication of smart and sustainable urban solutions. ICLEI also led the communications work of GrowSmarter and has shared the good examples provided by the project.
ICLEI’s work on the replication of smart solutions concluded with the report ‘ROAD TO REPLICATION – GUIDING CITIES ON SMART URBAN DEVELOPMENT’ for stakeholders interested in replicating different smart measures in the future. It provides insights about the importance of integrating Smart City strategies into the core of sustainable energy and climate action planning processes as well as sustainable urban developments. Some of the key aspects that could facilitate replication further include the definition of diverse and cross-sector governance structures that ensure smart technologies to serve as enablers for sustainable urban transformation. It is also important for cities to evaluate the replication potential of smart measures in their urban context, following systematic approaches and management cycles, which mainstream smart and sustainable action.
Other key aspects identified include amongst others the involvement of stakeholders in early stages of planning, the development of internal capacity building processes, the adoption of innovative ways to initiate projects, and the transparent communication to citizens about the goals and measures implemented.

The main role for ICLEI in this project is leading the communication and dissemination tasks. ICLEI has developed and is implementing and monitoring a detailed strategy form communication, dissemination and exploitation in order to support ongoing and extensive knowledge transfer aimed at increasing cycling solutions. That includes the development of the communication basis (communication strategy, digital and social media channels, communication materials) develop products and its dissemination, participation and organisation of events (workshops and meetings).
Moreover, ICLEI is in charge of writing the methodology and practical guidance for an effective transfer and transition strategy, including the use of transition management. Following the document, ICLEI developed an online exchange hub, that serves as an online collaborative platform supporting and facilitating the work of the cities involved in the project through a private, tailored working space.
Alining with the guidance, ICLEI leads the management of effective transition and change task. It is a core task of the project, and it involves capacity building and sustainable transfer of innovative cycling solutions.

ICLEI supports the Indian national government in implementing the National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana Scheme in order to bring together urban planning, economic growth and heritage conservation.

The IADAPT project addresses the water management issues in Indian cities, moving from existing water management practices that plan, establish and operate water supply, wastewater and storm water systems as separate entities to more integrated and collaborative approaches. ICLEI is helping two Indian cities – Solapur and Vijayawada to be climate resilient by developing an integrated catchment management plan guided by the decision support tool developed to move from conventional water management approaches to an ‘Integrated Approach’ based on the principles of IWRM and IUWM. The project will institutionalize climate adaptive water resource management at catchment level guided by participatory catchment planning, simple decision support tools, preparation of catchment level action plans and multi-pronged financing approaches.

Since 2008, ICLEI’s Cities Biodiversity Center (CBC) has convened successive summits as official parallel events to the Conference on Biological Diversity COP, to enable local and subnational governments engagement. These Summits have resulted in strong political outcomes, including the Quintana Roo (2016) and Sharm El-Sheikh (2018) Communiques, Nagoya Plan of Action on Subnational Governments, Cities and Other Local Authorities for Biodiversity (2011 – 2020), adopted at COP 10 in 2010, and of many decisions on local and subnational governments. Through these outcomes, ICLEI CBC has shaped a global policy environment that supports local and regional governments in their efforts to scale up and mainstream nature in sustainable urban development worldwide. ICLEI has also developed a dedicated website for local and subnational governments to advance the Action Agenda for Nature and People and the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and holds monthly informational webinars. The CBC supports the work of CitiesWithNature.

ICLEI Innovation will select teams, startups, products, services and innovative processes in the segment of afforestation or urban green areas, which strengthen the management and sustainability of cities, promote green spaces, adopt solutions based on nature and generate measurable management results municipal public health. Through a public announcement inviting organizations for proposal submissiton, ICLEI will select 10 best proposals and start a mentoring process with the selected ones through the online traction e-learning platform and the growth path methodology. This project is expected to collect innovative and sustainable solutions to the challenges brought by local and regional governments.

A group of students from Northeastern University has been studying Fortaleza’s current Climate Action Plan, its actions and goals, and how far they have advanced. They have also been studying American projects, policies and initiatives, in order to be able to explore how policies, technologies, and cultural differences in various countries have helped grow and implement sustainable efforts and to make comparisons between sustainable energy technologies and policies in US and Brazil, and Boston and Fortaleza. The Lab’s products will be a written proposal and a one page executive summary to the mayor summarizing suggestions and appointments, and an oral presentation.

ICLEI East Asia has works with SHRDC to conduct annual training programs to support local officials from ICLEI Member and other cities in Asia in strengthening their efforts to achieve sustainable and low emission urban development.

In 2019, two training programs were organized – one solely dedicated to Chinese Cities who participated in the 2019 International Forum on Air Quality Improvement jointly organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and ICLEI. And the other one for Southeast Asian Cities via the Ambitious City Promises project. Each program was designed to focus on policies that can be applied per the participating cities’ local context, considering their general socio-economic development and cooperation with the private sector and citizens. Through the policy presentations, site visits and group discussions, the participants were able to gain the latest insight on climate change mitigation and adaptation, energy transition, transportation, waste management, and citizen-led governance.

As a take-away of the training, participants presented their drafted action plans, combining learnings from the week-long training and their daily tasks.

ICLEI works to make ICT Fair improving the lives of workers and those impacted along different stages of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) supply chain through research, campaigning, capacity building and advocacy.

Using empirical research, ICLEI is developing a framework and tools to assess changes in food-water-energy nexus, their related trade-offs and the building of innovative capabilities in cities for developing innovative solutions to the food, water and energy nexus and manage green and blue infrastructure at the urban level. ICLEI is supporting the development of frameworks and tools that guide urban governance on the food-water-energy nexus, delivering innovative solutions to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss, while advancing development goals from food security to job creation across cities worldwide. The project assesses the changes in trade-offs of food-water-energy nexus (FWEN) in green and blue infrastructure (GBI) and their association with spatial planning and governance in eight cities using empirical cases. This will provide a better understanding of the barriers that hinder innovative and integrated FWEN approaches using GBI at different scales; and look for the common features of diverse interventions.

The project promotes multilevel governance policy dialogue, strengthen capacities and encourage the development of national, regional and local enabling frameworks to unlock local RE potential, also addressing energy efficiency. ICLEI will showcase how local projects and policies contribute to the achievement of national climate and energy targets in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and other policy objectives such as energy security and job creation, in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals.

In this action research project, ICLEI is providing support to four cities in developing collaboration mechanisms that advance climate resilient developmment, which can then be adapted to other contexts. The implementation of each country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) via enhanced multi-level governance has been identified as an area of focus of this project. Through this project, ICLEI builds on the understanding of what enables collaboration mechanisms for climate resilient development, such as environments that allow for learning-by-doing and accumulation of knowledge that can be harnessed, local government officials who are engaged and passionate about building climate resilience, and cities where strong multi-sectoral partnerships exist. Building climate resilience is a multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary issue, and therefore ICLEI promotes collaborative governance, which favours transdisciplinary collaborations that increase the depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise that can be drawn on when tackling complex issues such as climate resilience.

ICLEI created a facilitated multi-month training and capacity building program; the “Cohort” to build local government capacity in climate, resilience, forestry, and equity. Each cohort is theme-based and includes up to 20 participant local governments, some of whom are supported by university student externs. Cohort participants are supported by ICLEI USA technical advisors, the ICLEI USA online learning platform, recorded training content, and one-on-one support as needed. Topics have included the GHG net-zero building strategies, GHG inventories as a first step toward identifying a reduction target and priority strategies to reduce emissions; integrated climate action and resilience plans, and equitable community engagement. Cohort partners have included the Global Covenant of Mayors, Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute, Mountain Towns 2030, California Statewide Energy Efficiency Collaborative, the University of Northern Iowa, and the State of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Drawing on various research projects, ICLEI aims to make research work for local sustainability at the European level. ICLEI works to bridge the gap between research, policy-making and action in sustainable development, at and for the local level. ICLEI organizes knowledge brokerage between local governments and other stakeholder groups such as researchers, civil society initiatives, start-ups etc.